DETROIT >> The Detroit Red Wings are getting quite close to being able to dress a pretty good team from just their injured guys alone.

And they added another one to that roster Saturday, Todd Bertuzzi.

Bertuzzi will miss Sunday’s game in Chicago with a lower-body injury. He’s listed as day-to-day.

Advertisement

“If they’re hurt, they’re hurt,” Wings coach Mike Babcock said after practice at Joe Louis Arena. “That’s why I don’t make those decisions. Getting ready for the summer isn’t a priority. We need guys back so I can we get them back.”

Detroit recalled Jordin Tootoo from Grand Rapids to replace Bertuzzi in the lineup.

“All I can say is we can use anyone available,” Babcock said.

Tootoo has played in 10 games this season with the Wings. He’s got no goals, one assist, a minus-5 and five penalty minutes. In 38 games with the Griffins, he’s got four goals, 10 assists and 74 penalty minutes. He’s also a minus-2.

Datsyuk was shut down for three weeks at the trade deadline and Zetterberg won’t return in the regular season.

The Wings are second in the league in man games lost with 303, behind Pittsburgh (397), according to mangameslost.com.

Helm appeared to be the closest to returning, but suffered another setback Saturday.

“Helmer would have been back in a week ago if it was up to me,” Babcock said. “That’s why I’m not allowed to be involved in that. We have a guy with a broken foot, a broken rib, they’re not coming back. The head one, you never know. We thought (Johan Franzen) was coming back a bunch of times and he didn’t.”

Helm had planned to practice with the team Saturday, but left the ice before drills began.

“I was told he’d be ready to go,” Babcock said. “I don’t know what’s going on with him. There’s no sense getting ready for the summer, we’re playing now. We need guys back.”

Fixing the power play

The Wings are 0-for-11 in the last three games on the power play.

“We’ve been struggling to get in the zone and even when we’ve had it in the zone we’ve struggled to get chances,” Danny DeKeyser said. “We have to get back to basics, be simple on it and get pucks to the net and get traffic because that’s how we’re going to score.”

The Wings were 0-for-4 on the power play against Edmonton on Friday, having two chances to win it late with back-to-back delay of game penalties one of which occurred in overtime giving them a 4-on-3 man advantage.

“I didn’t think we entered the zone at all last game,” Babcock said. “We didn’t enter it good and we weren’t very smooth. We had an unbelievable look when we threw it into Bert one time and we had a real good rebound chance when (Teemu) Pulkkinen shot it to (Riley) Sheahan and we didn’t score. It’s a fine line. If we have bad entries all night and we score a goal we think the power play is great. The power play wasn’t good (Friday) night, we talked about it and we met with the groups (Saturday), spent a couple seconds on it in practice to be ready for (Sunday).”

Entering play Saturday, Detroit’s power play is ranked 17th overall.

“We all know we’ve got to be better on the power play,” Tomas Tatar said. “We practiced, tried to make up some things, tried to make some plays, hopefully the breakouts work for us. We have to work way more. I think we have to put work before skill, just a couple of retrievals. Everyone has to battle to help each other. Hopefully it’s going to work. We practiced some things for the next game. We’ll see.”

The team isn’t making excuses for the lack of talent missing on that specialty unit.

“It’s changing all the time, but the guys stepping in are capable of playing on it,” DeKeyser said. “Whether it’s guys called up or guys that have been here for years we have depth.”

Send comments to chuck.pleiness@macombdaily.com and visit his blog at redwingsfront.wordpress.com